77-A case of situated learning and its implications for the development of translator competence1

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Adres Kırklareli Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı Bölümü, Kayalı Kampüsü-Kırklareli/TÜRKİYE e-posta: editor@rumelide.com

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Kırklareli University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Turkish Language and Literature, Kayalı Campus-Kırklareli/TURKEY e-mail: editor@rumelide.com

77-A case of situated learning and its implications for the development of translator competence1

Mehmet YILDIZ² APA: Yıldız, M. (2020). A case of situated learning and its implications for the development of translator competence. RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, (Ö8), 1000-1015. DOI:

10.29000/rumelide.827642.

Abstract

The task of translation schools should not be reduced to that of vocational schools, which can be claimed to favor ‘practice-intensive training’ over ‘theory-bound education’. However, this proposition does not annul the fact that practice is an integral component of translation education.

Therefore, translation students should be offered real-world/authentic activities. In this sense, the present paper presents a situated-learning project conducted by the author and 62 first-year undergraduate students to investigate how a project-based situated learning approach can help translation students develop translator competence with particular focus on social competences.

The students were asked to visit the restaurants in the City of Çanakkale, Turkey, and to identify translated menus in need of editing. They worked in 14 groups of three to six members. At the end of this two-week project, they were requested to provide the commissioner with an edited version of the menu and to submit the author a report. The contents of the reports were phenomenologically analyzed in view of Kiraly’s (2013) three social competences – professional etiquette, negotiation, and teamwork – and Eser’s (2015) interpersonal skills. The obtained results suggest that the project helped the participating students raise an awareness that translation is not only the production of a target text based on an assumed source text but also a process that entails acquisition and possession of efficacious interpersonal skills for the satisfactory completion of a translation task and observance of professional codes of behavior as a member of a professional community.

Keywords: Situated learning, translator competence, translation project, undergraduate students, real-life settings

Bir durumlu öğrenme vakası ve çevirmenlik edincinin gelişimine ilişkin yansımaları

Öz

Çeviri okullarının görevi, kuram-odaklı akademik eğitim yerine uygulama-yoğun mesleki eğitimi yeğleyen meslek okullarının görevine indirgenmemelidir. Yine de böyle bir önerme uygulamanın çeviri eğitiminin ayrılmaz bir parçası olduğu gerçeğini geçersiz kılmaz. Bu yüzden çeviri öğrencilerine eğitimleri süresince gerçek veya özgül etkinlikler sunulmalıdır. Bu bağlamda, bu çalışma yazar ve birinci sınıfta okuyan 62 lisans öğrencisi tarafından gerçekleştirilen bir durumlu öğrenme projesini değerlendirmiştir. Bu yolla toplumsal edinçlere odaklanılarak proje-tabanlı durumlu öğrenme yaklaşımının çeviri öğrencilerine çevirmenlik edinçlerini geliştirebilmeleri için

1 This paper was presented at the Second International Congress on Academic Studies in Philology on September 2-5, 2020.

2 Dr. Öğr. Üyesi, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi, Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi, Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatları Bölmü, İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı ABD (Çanakkale, Türkiye), mehmetyildiz@comu.edu.tr, ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9482-4358 [Makale kayıt tarihi: 13.09.2020-kabul tarihi: 20.11.2020; DOI: 10.29000/rumelide.827642]

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nasıl yardımcı olabileceği araştırılmıştır. Proje kapsamında öğrencilerden Çanakkale (Türkiye) şehrinde bulunan restoranları ziyaret etmeleri ve düzeltme ihtiyacı olan çeviri menüleri belirlemeleri istenmiştir. Öğrenciler üç ila altı kişiden oluşan 14 grup halinde çalışmışlardır. İki haftalık bu projenin sonunda kendilerinden işverene düzeltmesi yapılmış menüyü ulaştırmaları ve yazara da bir rapor sunmaları istenmiştir. Raporların içerileri Kiraly’nin (2013) mesleki kurallar, müzakere ve ekip çalışmasından oluşan üç toplumsal edinci ve Eser’in (2015) kişilerarası beceriler kavramı göz önünde bulundurularak görüngüsel olarak çözümlenmiştir. Elde edilen sonuçlar;

projenin katılımcıların çevirinin sadece varsayılan bir kaynak metinden yola çıkılarak bir erek metin üretme süreci olmadığı aynı zamanda bir çeviri görevinin tatmin edici düzeyde tamamlanması için etkili ve verimli kişilerarası becerilere sahip olunmasını ve bir mesleki topluluğun üyeleri olarak mesleki davranış kurallarına uymayı gerektiren bir süreç olduğuna dair farkındalık kazanmaları konusunda yardımcı olduğunu göstermiştir.

Anahtar kelimeler: Durumlu öğrenme, çevirmenlik becerisi, çeviri projesi, lisans öğrencileri, gerçek ortamlar

1. Introduction

Translator competence is a less studied phenomenon than translation competence, and the amount of phenomenological research investigating translator competence is little if any. Thus, any academic paper on translator competence can be claimed to make a substantial contribution to Translation Studies since “little attention has been paid in research to certain components of translator competence” (del Mar Haro-Soler, 2018, p. 131), among which are socio-cultural skills – social competences as defined by Kiraly (2013). These competences typify translator competence and more specifically are considered the sub-competences distinguishing translator competence from translation competence. This paper intends to investigate how a project-based situated learning approach can help translation students develop translator competence with particular focus on its social sub- competences.

To this end, training and education are juxtaposed in the theoretical discussion to reveal their differences and their contribution to the development of translatorial knowledge and skills and to highlight the significance of education for the acquisition of these skills and knowledge sets. The paper then discusses why practice is integral to translation education. The next section compares translation competence and translator competence to show how practice in real-world settings is relevant to the development of translator competence. After that, it tackles how much situated learning can contribute to the learning of translation students to become members of a professional community. In Method, the corpus, the participants, and the analysis of the paper are provided, after which the results are presented in consideration of the social competences etiquette, interpersonal skills/negotiation, and teamwork. Then, some final remarks are made in Conclusion.

2. Training or education

The dichotomy between formal and informal training is among the fervently discussed topics concerning translator training. Or should one say translator education? This question suggests the existence of another dichotomy, training vs. education, a differentiation of which is thought to prove fruitful for a proper discussion of translator-oriented pedagogical efforts.

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The terms ‘training’ and ‘education’ are both used in the literature and reflect the diversity of approaches to the subject. In very general terms, training tends to be preferred by those who adopt a more vocational or market-driven approach to developing translator and interpreter skills, while education is favored by those who situate the acquisition of these skills in the broader social context of higher or tertiary education, although this split is not entirely clear-cut (Kelly and Martin, 2009).

Mossop (2003) claims that “university-based translation schools must uphold the traditional distinction between education and training” and that such schools “must resist the insistent demands of industry for graduates ready to produce top-notch translations in this or that specialized field at high speed using the latest computer tools (2003, p. 20). Mossop suggests that translation schools should not exist to ‘deliver’ translators tailored to satisfy the current demands of translation industry but to help them acquire “certain general abilities” that they are to operationalize in translation situations likely to exist decades later. In other words, he emphasizes the cruciality of adaptable translation competence acquired through education rather than training. He, therefore, advises that translation schools should not “turn themselves into training schools” (Mossop, 2003). A similar warning is made by Pym (2005) that people should not attempt to “teach students everything in a full degree program”, which means that “preordain[ing] a professional life”, yet “it would be enough to train students to learn and adapt” (Pym, 2005, p. 4). As Mossop (2003) and Pym (2005) do, Bernardini (2004) too discusses what the focus of translation teaching should be. She proposes that

“adaptability” is a skill that can be acquired through “education, not training” (Bernardini, 2004, p.

20). Adaptability – in her words – can be referred to as “to develop the ability to employ available knowledge to solve new problems, and to gain new knowledge as the need arises”, which can be achieved in an educational setting rather than through training (Bernardini, 2004, pp. 19-20). In support of the aforesaid, Gile (2004, pp. 2-3) explains that translation is not a combination of reiterant actions which are practiced “until they are automated” but of varying tasks; hence, it is reasonable “to provide trainees with tools to guide them in their autonomous progression along the learning curve after they leave the classroom” (Gile, 2004, pp. 2-3). Gile (2004) stresses that learning to be a translator is a never-ending process, which should be buttressed with tools that will guide them as they continue to learn to become competent translators. Akbulut (2005, p. 105) cautions that universities [as teaching bodies] should not reduce their mission to training professionals; otherwise, they would deny the essence of their very being. The main aim of translation education is not to teach students how to translate by making them repetitively translate but to teach researching translators, who can solve a problem posed by new translation situations by accessing their previously acquired body of knowledge (2005, p. 105). Likewise, Bernardini (2004) describes that learning aims “to develop the ability to employ available knowledge to solve new problems, and to gain new knowledge as the need arises” and this “ability to use finite resources indefinitely is a result of education, not training”

(Bernardini, 2004, pp. 19-20). Yazıcı (2007) associates translational knowledge and skills with information retrieval and learning to suggest that imparting life-long learning skills should be among the tasks of translation schools (2007, p. 96). Selcen and Eryatmaz (2014, p. 74) believe that translator candidates should be able to develop their acquired skills over time by using the strategies that they have developed during their undergraduate education. Then, as the scholars above indicate, the task of a translation school should also be to help prospective translators develop survival skills adaptable and operationalizable in real professional settings.

Gile (2009) asserts that “formal training” is not a prerequisite to becoming a professional translator, yet that it plays two notable tasks: “to help individuals who wish to become professional interpreters or translators enhance their performance to the full realization of their potential” and “to help them develop their Translation[sic] skills more rapidly than through field experience and self-instruction,

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which may involve much groping in the dark and learning by trial-and-error”. It can be concluded from these remarks that even though a translator is not required to receive a formal education of translation to become a translator, it serves as a shortcut to the profession.

From the foregoing discussion, three inferences can be made: (a) even if some scholars opt for making a distinction between training and education, training is used to cover education as well, (b) the primary concern of education – formal training as some say– should be to help prospective professionals acquire knowledge, skills, and abilities that they will improve and operationalize as they need. Therefore, (c) what translation schools should do is to teach and educate but not to train.

Due to these inferences, ‘teaching’ and ‘educating’ were used to refer to the processes whereby students are guided to acquire translational and translatorial knowledge and skills and to the pedagogical practices “to favor the growth of the individual, developing [his/]her cognitive capacities, and those attitudes and predispositions that will put [his/]her in a position to cope with the most varying (professional) situations” (Bernardini, 2004).

3. Practice in translation education

The above discussion signals that education and training are used interchangeably and, as stated by some scholars, ‘education’ (and formal training to refer to education proper by some herein) relies on structured, theory- and curriculum-driven teaching activities offered by formal institutions, which by and large aim to assist learners with acquiring adaptive core translatorial knowledge and skills that are to help them ‘survive’ in the translation/linguistic market and are likely to be improved through post- educational learning as they are faced with new translation situations or as they received professional training. Contrastingly, ‘training’ is overly dependent on a non-formal, pedagogically unstructured, professional process of learning through repetitive and trial-and-error practices, whereby prospective translators are exposed to extracurricular market-driven activities. It is majorly intended to allow trainees to develop specific vocational skills and hone the already acquired ones. However, it should not be construed that one should be preferred over the other or education is the best way to impart translational knowledge and skills, while training should be ignored. Rather, they are mutually complementary.

Learning is a continuous activity; in other words, one cannot decide to stop learning since she/he learned whatever there is in a certain profession or field. Not differentiating education and training from each other, Pym states that “there is a whole range of possible training situations, some in universities, a lot outside universities, and an increasing number involve practitioners training practitioners, with universities charging fees for their stamp of approval”. This clearly manifests that learning happens inside and outside formal schools. Today, “it is difficult to characterize the translation market unambiguously” (Int, 2005, p. 134). Therefore, “Translators are forced to ‘learn and train’ in new fields, often all alone, and they must always be up-to-date in terms of new advances” (Int 2005, p. 134). Considering the ever-changing translation industry – probably as never experienced before –, it can be said that the market ahead of the translation students is volatile, which makes it almost impossible to raise students to work in a “preordained” field (Pym 2005). This is why students should get to know the translation-related world outside the educational environment as early as possible. Volatility is also inherent in the translation itself as a process and a product because

“translations are, by definition, written for new situations, purposes, recipients and cultures. When you learn to translate, you have to learn how to gain an overview of a new situation with all its different

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cultural factors and, perhaps even more importantly, you have to learn how to position yourself in this communication system and define your own situational role, goal and tasks. Translation can be seen as a problem-solving process in which the communication expert is part of a complex, dynamic system with various cultural, communicative, situative and professional aspects” (Risku, 2002, p 52).

Translation is not a mere transferring of a source message to a target textual shell or not a simple text production activity. As Risku’s remarks suggest, it includes new and different cultural-bound communication situations to adapt to and requires a translator to know how to position him/herself in a communicative situation and decide upon his/her own role and purpose in consideration of such a situation. This proposition calls for translation-related knowledge and skills, more precisely translator knowledge and skills. The following title tackles how related and different translation and translatorial knowledge and skills are.

4. Translation competence or translator competence

Translational sets of knowledge and skills are among the frequently researched subjects. Since the 1970s, translation competence has been receiving much scholarly attention (Pym 2003), not to reach a saturation point yet. This expected-to-exist research trend possibly arises from the changing nature of translation along with the changing and diversifying market dynamics. The transformation entails the acquisition and operationalization of new sets of knowledge and skills, which are readily included in an ever-growing – bloated perhaps– lists of components. The present study is not concerned with introducing such new sub-competences but to offer new insights into how situated learning can contribute to imparting translatorial knowledge and skills to translation students. As clear from this statement, translator competence is preferred to translation competence for the purpose of the study.

Not many discussions are available to compare and contrast translation competence and translator competence although translation competence has been described by a great many authors so far (Pym, 1992; Lörscher, 1996; PACTE, 2000; 2003; 2005; 2009; Eruz, 2008; Neubert, 2000; Schäffner, 2000;

Akbulut, 2005; Yazıcı, 2007; Göpferich and Jääskeläinen, 2009; Korkmaz, 2019). It is thought that translation competence incorporates the components of what is herein called translator competence and “is a prerequisite for, but not identical with, translatorial competence” (Englund-Dimitrova and Jonasson, 1999, p. 2). This description suggests that translator competence is inclusive of translation competence. Eser (2015) substantiates this proposition by saying, translation competence “as a multicomponential concept in literature may not cover the necessary skills if it is taken from an organizational point of view” (Eser, 2015, p. 4) and “is one of the constituents that the translator’s competence is made up of (Eser, 2015, p. 11). Likewise, Echeverri (2015) believes that “translation competence and translator competence are different” and that the former “relies on a conception of knowledge as static and fixed”, whereas the latter “is determined by the culture and the knowledge [of]

communities that learners will join once they have completed their programs of study, that is the community of professional translators. Thus, translator competence evolves with the profession and follows the transformation of society in general” (Echeverri, 2015, p. 301). Echeverri’s conceptualization of translator competence highlights translators’ need for interpersonal, sociocultural, professional in-community interactions to acquire translator knowledge and skills, which leads to the dynamic nature of translator competence in contrast to translation competence, which denotes “the set of knowledge and skills required to produce a translation” (Echeverri, 2015, p.

301). For Eser (2015), translators should acquire conceptual skills (planning, organizing, and controlling) and interpersonal skills (leading) on top of translation competence. Then one should go beyond gaining the knowledge and skills required to translate to serve in a translational situation or

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environment involving people engaging in translation-related tasks and develop organizational and management skills to act ably in the translation market. Similarly, Kiraly (2000) propounds that

“becoming a professional translator clearly entails more than learning specific skills that allow one to produce an acceptable target text in one language on the basis of a text written in another, [but]

joining a number of new communities such as the educated users of several languages, those conversant in specialized technical fields, and proficient users of traditional tools and new technologies for professional interlingual communication purposes”. As Kiraly (2000) defines, translator competence “does entail being able to use tools and information to create communicatively successful texts that are accepted as good translations within the community concerned. Perhaps most importantly, it means how to work co-operatively within the various overlapping communities of translators and subject matter experts to accomplish work cooperatively; to appropriate knowledge, norms and conventions; and to contribute to the evolving conversation that constitutes those communities” (Kiraly, 2000, pp. 13-14).

It can be concluded from these conceptualizations of translator competence that translation competence and translator competence are related but different and even though the latter is claimed to occur with several socio-cultural skills added to translation skills typical of translation competence, there are some components, e.g. use of tools and information (Kiraly, 2000) and psychophysiological competence (Kelly, 2002)”, purported to be peculiar to translator competence are also observable in various models of translation competence, e.g. of PACTE (2000; 2003; 2005), Yazıcı (2007), and Göpferich and Jääskeläinen (2009).

Therefore, this paper considers translator competence “an umbrella term” (Eser, 2015) and “a macro- competence that constitutes the set of capacities, skills, knowledge and even attitudes that professional translators have” (Kelly, 2002, p. 14).

Fig 1. Kiraly’s (2013) translator competence model

The translator competence model (Fig. 1) of Kiraly (2013, p. 202) lays bare that translator competence consists of three types of competencies, namely social competences (SC), personal competences (PC), and translation competence (TC). The present paper refers to Kiraly’s (2013) social competences and Eser’s (2015) interpersonal competences as it discusses the implications of the analyzed project of situated learning for the development of translator competence.

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5. Situated learning in translation education

Situatedness is a critical consideration in translation process and translation students are asked and expected to take into account the situation in which source text has been produced and target text will occur because considering situation during translation is a decisive part of sensemaking. Therefore, it is reasonable to present translation students with translation practice in authentic settings which potentially incorporate situations to make learning more contextualized; otherwise, theory teaching in a formal translation school would remain “unconnected to the skills learned and topics tackled in language-specific translation teaching and the challenges experienced in real-life translation practice”

(Risku, 2016, p. 12).

Taking translation as a situated cognitive activity, (Kiraly, 2005, p. 1102) expresses that in situated translation “the translator’s focus of attention moves away from anything resembling the mere transcoding of texts to the ways and means of interpreting and managing entire communicative situations. The production of situationally appropriate artifacts calls for much more than plugging in

‘equivalent’ linguistic elements or the off the-shelf application of ready-made translation strategies”

(Kiraly, 2005). Similarly, Risku (2002) proposes that translation is no more considered a “learned behavior” but a “situated action” (Risku, 2002, p. 526) because it “is done not only by the brain, but also by complex systems, systems which include people, their specific social and physical environments and all their cultural artefacts” (Risku, 2002, p. 530) and “situated translation [is] an example of a highly complex problem-solving process embedded in social and physical environments”

(Risku, 2002, p. 525). Likewise, Kiraly (2012) remarks that translation is “complex in the sense that we are constantly attempting to solve problems which arise dynamically from the infinitely variable new constellations of words, concepts, messages, authors, clients, translation briefs, collaborators, resources, readers and of course the myriad translator-specific factors that characterize the everyday world of the translator’s professional activities” (Kiraly, 2012). Such parameters intervene in the sensemaking of translators and make translation a socioculturally driven sensemaking process. This discussion of situatedness in translation leads to the fact that if translation is guided by social, cultural, and physical factors, then some portions of translator education should be offered in situations “to which a specific knowledge or skill naturally belongs” (Calvo, 2015, p. 307) and “knowledge needs to be presented in an authentic context that would normally involve that knowledge” (González-Davies and Enríquez-Raído, 2016, p. 8) to allow learners to acquire “a sense of professional etiquette, of appropriate professional comportment” (Kiraly, 2006, p. 74), interpersonal skills to know “how to negotiate diplomatically with client”, “the ability to function effectively as members of a team.” (Kiraly, 2006, p. 74), and “the principles of ‘learning by doing’ and collaborative learning” (Calvo, 2015, p.

307). One of the advantages of situated learning is that it “moves away from teacher-centered methods” (Calvo, 2015, p. 307) to a teaching approach favoring self-learning, hands-on learning, and learner autonomy.

Since translation education can be based on learners, situations, and experience, “Situated learning has become a dominant goal in the translation classroom” (Risku, 2016, p. 12). But as Risku puts it,

“the explicit use of situated approaches is not “the center of attention in translation theory teaching”

yet, which often makes translation theory “unconnected to the skills learned and topics tackled in language-specific translation teaching and the challenges experienced in real-life translation practice”

(Risku, 2016). This is why research handling situated approaches are highly valuable because approaches of situated learning enable both teachers and students move from “classroom learning activities that involve knowledge that is abstract, unconnected and decontextualized” to engaging in “a

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‘community of practice’ where the student advances from ‘novice’, at the periphery of this community, to ‘expert’, at its center” (González-Davies and Enríquez-Raído, 2016, p. 8). Besides, situated learning activities assist students with achieving “deep learning by putting theory into practice” (Hastürkoğlu, 2019, p. 914) by requiring them “to understand the underlying meanings, rather than the surface meanings, and to apply the theoretical knowledge gathered to real life” (Hastürkoğlu, 2019, p. 916).

Another merit of these educational practices is that “realistic conditions [help] students work and build knowledge and skills in a collaborative fashion, thus taking on the role of active learners, rather than passive receivers of potentially abstract and decontextualized knowledge, which may appear divorced from real-world requirements or practices” (Bowker, 2015, p. 97).

Among such approaches are authentic translation projects which can be referred to as “collaborative undertaking of complete translation projects for real clients (Kiraly, 2005, p. 1102). As González- Davies and Enríquez-Raído (2016) suggest, projects of this kind “help students achieve a semiprofessional level of autonomy and expertise through authentic experience” (Kiraly, 2005, p.

1102). This pedagogical goal can be achieved through “having students handle real translation assignments embedded in authentic situations with the same sorts of complexity and problem-solving constraints that they can expect to face after graduation” (Kiraly, 2005, p. 1102). Kiraly (2005, p. 1099) is of the view that “the observation of learning processes within the context of real translation projects carried out in a pedagogical setting will […] confirm the inestimable value of such projects for the development of translator competence (Kiraly, 2005, p. 1099). The present paper is significant because it attempts to contribute to the scholarly efforts to reveal “the inestimable value of such projects for the development of translator competence”.

6. Method

6.1. Corpus and Participants

This study presents a situated-learning project conducted by the author and 62 first-year undergraduate students enrolled in the course “Basic Research Techniques” in the Department of English Language and Literature in the 2018-2019 academic year. The students were asked to visit the restaurants in the City of Çanakkale, Turkey and to identify translated menus in need of editing.

GROUPS MEMBER # CODE

Group 1 4 G1

Group 2 5 G2

Group 3 5 G3

Group 4 6 G4

Group 5 3 G5

Group 6 3 G6

Group 7 5 G7

Group 8 4 G8

Group 9 5 G9

Group 10 4 G10

Group 11 5 G11

Group 12 5 G12

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Group 13 4 G13

Group 14 4 G14

Table 1. Number of group members and their respective codes

They worked in 14 groups of three to six members (Table 1). At the end of this two-week project, they were requested to provide the commissioner with an edited version of the menu and to submit the lecturer a report on the following parameters: pre-project process, the way of identifying restaurant, features of restaurants, students’ attitude/approach to commissioner, commissioner’s attitude/approach to students, intra-group interaction/attitude, unedited and edited segments, cause of editing, research process, revised segments based on supervisor’s and peers’ feedback, and self- evaluation. The corpus hereof consists of these reports.

6.1. Analysis

For the purpose of this study, the contents of the reports were analyzed to foreground the potential implications of such projects for translation students’ developing translator competence in view of Kiraly’s (2013) etiquette, negotiation, and teamwork and Eser’s (2015) interpersonal skills.

To identify the commonalities in consideration of these parameters, a phenomenological perspective was adopted (Fraenkel, Wallen, & Hyun, 2012). A phenomenological study investigates various reactions to, or perceptions of, a particular phenomenon”. In phenomenology, “the researcher hopes to gain some insight into the world of his or her participants and to describe their perceptions and reactions” and “attempts to identify and describe aspects of each individual’s perceptions and reactions to his or her experience in some detail” (Fraenkel et al., 2012, p. 432). As Fraenkel et al.

(2012) describe, researchers conducting a phenomenological study “seek to identify, understand, and describe” “some commonality to how human beings perceive and interpret similar experiences” “by studying multiple perceptions of the phenomenon as experienced by different people, and by then trying to determine what is common to these perceptions and reactions”. “This commonality of perception is referred to as the essence […] of the experience”. This essence, which they look for “is the cornerstone —the defining characteristic— of phenomenological research (Fraenkel et al., 2012, p.

432). The central question is “What is the meaning, structure, and essence of the lived experience of this phenomenon for this person or group of people?” (Best and Kahn, 2006, p. 255). “Phenomenology enables researchers to examine everyday human experience in close, detailed ways. This form of inquiry attempts to discover the meaning people place on their lived experiences. These projects result in contextual, holistic, thematic descriptions of particular experiences” (deMarrais, 2004, p. 56).

To elaborate how the characteristics of phenomenology translate into the present study, this paper attempts to describe the participating students’ reactions to and perceptions of the situations contained in the project, e.g., in-group role distribution, interacting with the person in charge, negative attitudes of the restaurant owners or the waiters. It also intends to come up with some commonalities to the participants’ experiences and the way they interpret them by intending to answer the question of

“what is the meaning, structure, and essence of the interaction with real clients in real-world settings for the participants?”. By doing so, the study attempts to figure out what they might have learned from their interaction with real-life media and the (f)actors inside toward developing their social competences.

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To promote the validity and reliability of the data analysis, the reader was provided with verbatim quotations, which are presented under each category to highlight how relevant the category is to the analyzed segment. Acronyms and abbreviations were used to replace the participants’, the contact persons’, and the restaurants’ names when needed.

6.3. Results

The reports submitted by the participating students were analyzed for the purpose of the study. The content segments concerning professional etiquette, interpersonal skills/negotiation, and teamwork were isolated to relate speculatively the participants’ reported experiences to their likely acquisitions.

6.3.1. Professional etiquette

Online Cambridge Dictionary (n.d.) defines “etiquette” as “the set of rules or customs that control accepted behavior in particular social groups or social situations”. In this sense, the participants are expected to learn about a body of rules and codes governing translation as a profession and the related community. Concerning this social competence, the participants:

- learned to act professionally not to escalate the situation to a conflict and to criticize objectively their own behaviors and attitudes.

o “We were not welcomed by the owner of the place called IPK and literally kicked out. We think that we too should be blamed of this.” – G1.

o “As we examined the menu, an employee sat across from us and started to ask questions. We respectfully answered the questions, but he seems uneasy with the situation. Although we explained that it was for a research assignment and we did not intend to expose their shortcomings, he got very defensive. He did not let us take photos because he thought that we might misuse it and said that it could lead to misunderstandings. Since we sensed that he did not trust us and we would not be able to study the menu easily, we resolved that it would be better not to pick this place and set out to look for another one.” – G12.

- practiced informing the client of the process.

o “We told him/her that we needed to work at home to further examine the menus, would like to take their photos, and would come back with revised ones.” – G1.

o “We told him/her that we would get back to him/her with revised menu and feedback.” – G2.

- practiced keeping a promise.

o “The revised menu was taken back to K Hotel after the project was completed and the unedited and edited menus were compared.” – G2.

As can be understood from the verbatim quotations, the participants gained insight into acting professionally not to cause a conflict by adopting an amicable attitude. Besides, they practiced informing the client of the process and keeping their promise by meeting with the commissioners upon the completion of the project. These experiences can be told to help the participating students raise an awareness of professional codes of behavior applicable in the translation industry.

6.3.2. Interpersonal skills/negotiation

By default, translators are to interact with the client either directly or by a proxy (thereof). The way he/she manages the interaction defines the extent of his/her professional proficiency. Therefore, they are required to possess interpersonal skills to manage the translation process by negotiating with

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clients or other members of the profession before, during, and after the translation job. To acquire these skills or to hone them, the participants:

- practiced negotiating to be commissioned.

o “Although the contact persons were knowledgeable about the project, the project was introduced by presenting them with in-depth explanations and even convinced them that we would produce better results than the previous groups that visited the same place […]. By minimizing their concerns, we ensured that we were highly confident in pulling this task off and would make the menu better by revising it.” – G6.

- learned the importance of good manners and attitudes not to face conflicts and to be able to see a task done.

o “Not to face the problem we had with IPK [a restaurant], we adopted a better manner.” – G1.

o “We attempted to adopt an illuminating, wholehearted, and polite manner and keep our explanations as succinct and clear as possible.” – G3.

o “Thanks to our clear communication, we were welcomed with a candid attitude and received an affirmative response, so that we began studying the menu.” – G7.

o “The places selected for the project were understanding and tolerant, which made it easier for the group members to gather information for the project and to ask the owner about the arising questions.” – G10.

o “His kindness and good humor were returned by the waiter, who rewarded his attitude by giving him the menu”. – G11.

- learned from other members of the profession to sort a problem.

o “As we walked around, we ran into a group of our friends. They told us that there was a tavern with an English menu and its owner is very friendly and his/her child wanted to study English Language and Literature.” – G1.

o “The word was kept as it was after interacting with a translator”. – G10.

- learned to recover from the effects of an undesirable situation caused by a client for the completion of the assigned task.

o “This attitude made us upset and discouraged us and we stopped looking for a new place. In a few days, we reaffirmed the graveness of the assignment and shared the duties.” – G1.

o “When we entered IPK [a restaurant] and started to tell them about the project, the contact person behaved us rudely and drove us out. Even though we were upset, we pulled ourselves together to look for new places […] – G3

- practiced staying resilient and not to give up in the face of challenges.

o For example, “Although we were very tired, we decided to visit one last place that day.” – G1.

o “Despite exhaustion, we visited each and every open place there”. – G1.

- experienced that clients may be rude to them and indifferent to translation job.

o “[The owner] said that we can use the menu for our project by slurring us.” – G3.

- experienced that they are a part of a professional community and a commissioner’s unsatisfactory experience with a member of the profession may be carried over to them.

o “When we sat at the table to examine the menu, the infuriated director rushed to us and snatched it from our hands. Because of the problems he had encountered before, he did not let us study the menu and asked us to leave the place.” – G8.

o “As we tried to pick up a place according to our criteria, we encountered several problems just as our friends did. Some of the contact people were candid and tolerant, while some had concerns about the project and did not share their menus with us.” – G12.

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o “The director was cold and rude to us because of the groups having visited the place before we did.” – G14.

Thanks to this project work, the students practiced how to negotiate with a commissioner to get the job, which can be considered a critical survival skill for a translator to thrive in an increasingly harsher sector. They also experienced that adopting a socially acceptable manner potentially results in a smoother workflow by attracting more support from the client and minimizing conflict with him/her.

Yet they learned that it is impossible to evade conflicts from time to time, so they should be determined to settle the disputes and to complete the task in the face of adversities. Moreover, they are thought to come to understand that previous mistakes of a member of the profession may cause a client to develop ‘bad’ memories that he/she can overgeneralize onto other translators. This teaches or reminds them of the fact that they will be a part of a community and they co-exist with the other members.

6.3.3. Teamwork

The dynamics of the social competences ‘interpersonal skills’ and ‘negotiations’ extend to teamwork as well. But the number of interacting people is limited in a team. For a team to be successful, the population should be neither too small to lead to work overload nor too large to monitor the workflow and to manage the team members. All the groups in this study reported that their teams worked effectively to finish the task, which signifies that the group sizes of three to six members can be formed for the purpose of the assigned task. Concerning the functioning of their respective groups, the participants:

- experienced that effective means of communication saves the team a considerable amount of time.

o “We used ‘Whatsapp’ to communicate, which we believe save us a lot of time.” – G1.

o “The in-group communication was performed face-to-face and via the Whatsapp group designated for this task.” – G2.

- practiced sharing the workload.

o “We created a group of five and the duties were distributed.” – G2.

o “ES and IŞ made a long list of the restaurants […]. EC and ES talked to the contact people and IŞ and S took notes. EC took the photos. ES revised the finished presentation and sent the group member the final version.” – G3.

o “When done with her part, she rushed to help the other members” – G8.

- experienced that distribution of duties based on team members’

specializations/interests leads to fruitful results.

o “Each member was allowed to use their own specialized skills to create an enjoyable research and learning environment.” – G11.

- experienced valuing other team members’ views and setting aside/ignoring differences for the good of the project.

o “In the first meeting, the path to follow was discussed and a unanimous decision was made after each member was asked to state his/her view.” – G2.

o “We discussed to avail of the team members’ personal knowledge”. – G3.

o “We came up with a more comprehensive assignment by making joint decisions after listening to each member’s views.” – G3.

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o “From time to time the group members disagreed with each other and had difficulty making decisions, which delayed the submission, but these dissidences provided us with wider perspectives.

We were able to finish the presentation as a result of the hard-reached consensus.” – G3.

o “We are a crowded group of six members. But even though we have different personalities and thoughts, we patiently listened to each other and each member evaluated the others’ views as well.” – G4.

o “She did not hesitate to change her translation based on the feedback of the other members.” – G8.

o “The most serious problem we as a group faced was disagreements [sometimes resolved]

unanimously or by a large majority.” – G10.

- experienced that sometimes a team member may not be able to equally contribute to the project; then he/she should be given a chance to make up for his/her absence from the task.

o “We went on translating at E’s. We divided the task into three upon learning that S wouldn’t be able to come over and each member translated his own part. S was tasked with creating the slides and delivering the presentation.” – G1.

- learned that each team member might not have correctly understood the instructions, which may cause grave consequences.

o “Because the members responsible for the menus and the places misunderstood the instructions and chose the menus with orthographic mistakes before deciding upon the menu of K Hotel, the presentation was created accordingly. Later, the mistake was realized, and the same process was repeated for the new place and its menu.” – G2

o “The project instilled in the team members how helpful efficient use of time, effective communication, the awareness of reaching consensus.” – G2

- learned the importance of time management as a team.

o “We were not able to use time efficaciously as we did the assignment; our time management could be better.” – G9.

- practiced exchanging ideas within the group.

o “In the production [of the presentation], we were in constant communication to exchange ideas.” – G2.

- learned that team members may not know each other but have to work together.

o “Our team did not form out a plan. We had to start the project but because we were late, we were not placed in a group, so that we wished to form our own group instead of joining a team as a newcomer.” – G5.

- experienced that remote work may pose problems, which may lead to some issues.

o “Two members of the group were away from the city, so we had some communication problems, whose effects were observable in our presentation.” – G13.

Translation as a professional activity cannot be conducted in solitude, and by its nature, it typically necessitates the involvement of two actors, i.e., the translator and the client. In some cases, a translation task requires a congregation of several translators, possibly along with other actors to assume linguistic or non-linguistic, textual or non-textual roles, as in Holz-Mänttäri’s ‘Translatorial Action’ regarding translation as a “collaborative process which leads up to the production of a target text” (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 2014, pp. 188-189). Translation projects are significant in allowing prospective students to learn and/or practice how to fit into this collaborative process and contribute to its flawless operation. As can be inferred from the reports of the participating students, projects as situated learning activities potentially offer prospective translators the media to experience effective

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means and ways of communication, productive distribution of duties, collaboration for a common goal, efficient time management, in-group exchange of views, and remote working.

7. Conclusion

This study aimed to describe a case of a translation project as a situated learning approach by phenomenologically analyzing the reports by 62 first-year undergraduate students to reveal that how projects in real settings can help translation students develop translator competence and hone their existing translatorial skills by exclusively focusing on the social competences of Kiraly’s (2013) – professional etiquette, negotiation, and team member – and Eser’s (2015) interpersonal skills.

Accordingly, the results were presented in three parts, i.e., professional etiquette, interpersonal skills/negotiation, and team member.

Concerning ‘professional etiquette’, the participants learned about how acting professionally facilitates translation process and gained insight into how it might be impeded if they failed to adopt a professional attitude. In this project, in which the students experienced translation situations in real- life settings, they practiced how to negotiate with a commissioner to be hired and experienced that adopting socially acceptable manners can help them avoid conflicts with clients and members of the profession, which translates into a smoother workflow. They also came to understand that conflicts are occasionally unavoidable, so they should employ their negotiating skills to settle professional and interpersonal disputes. Moreover, they learned about the dynamic variables typical of a team and how to collaborate with other team members and to compensate for the members’ failures to observe the rules governing the interactions between team members and with clients.

It was observed that the project helped the participating students get to know about the real-life translation situations and raise an awareness that translation is not only the production of a target text based on an assumed source text but also a process that entails the acquisition and possession of efficacious social skills – such as managing, planning, organizing, controlling, compensating, compromising, and leading – for the satisfactory completion of a translation task. This awareness is believed to assist the participating students with taking their first steps in becoming competent members of the community of translation professionals.

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